Graham I agree with you 100% (150% if that was possible).
I don't blame affiliates who do it at all, I seriously never look at a site and say what an asshole their SEOing bonus codes. What I get upset each time I see this is that poker rooms allow this - What I was trying to state is I believe the only reason to have the term
Full Tilt Referral Code linked all over your site is to steal players - either from direct sign ups or from other affiliates.
Why does this bother me? I think affiliates who provide the rooms with brand support should be paid more than those who capitalize on their keywords and brand.
I don't refer many players to PokerStars, I have the type of site now where a lot of my visitors know pokerstars. However, I would promote them even if I'm not an affiliate - I play exclusively there. I have no interest in any other site. I'm happy cashing in FPP points for 30" monitors or saving them for concierge or tournament seats. I don't blame PokerStars for not paying me more than they do, I sent them a few players per month (I would guess really good ones, but no way of telling) but I sure bet I make them a lot more than some of the sites that they pay these higher rates to who are just stealing players.
I'm just using Stars as an example: I have no major issue with them on the affiliate end. I'm just saying I strongly believe the method which affiliates get rewarded is messed up.
Another example is
Full Tilt. I get 35% MGR with them (no secret everyone knows this is available) but I have to use someone elses account. The reason this is the case was because when I signed up to be an affiliate with them tiers were 20 and 25%. All sorts of sites are offering 27% rakeback. I email them asking what we need to do to get more than 25%. There answer after many emails is that there is no guarantee no matter how much volume I do I'll ever earn more than 25%. Now they have this tier system and with $50K i could earn 35% with my own account. If they had that when I started i'd be way over $50K. I negotiate back and forth with
Full TIlt asking for 32% and then 35% when I reach certain tiers. It cost them NOTHING to give this to me. I have a bunch of options now to get 35% using someone else account so its actually a bargain for them. And them doing this for me gives me the ability to market them more effectively and in more languages. The final answer is basically no, good conversations though and I'm sure if the AMs could of given it to me they more than likely would of - so what happens now?
Full Tilt still pays someone else 35% and it all comes back to my players and me but meanwhile
Full Tilt remains listed #4 or #5 or #8 different places on my sites with no serious push because its not convenient for me to market them.
Meanwhile I got these lesser known rooms who give me these awesome offers and for the life of me I can't figure out why no one signs up at them and I feel bad because there so generous to me and I can't get get any sort of
conversions to them.
Very long rant but my issue is that I work hard to send good players to poker rooms and am always coming up with new ideas to do so and meanwhile these rooms have a method in place for my players to be stole by someone else if I don't but in HUGE bold text a bonus code they'll remember.
Oh speaking of that, Yes i do have an issue with PokerStars. They asked me for a choice of a bonus code several weeks ago and then never responded. See that adds to the problem, I still can't even get a real bonus code and I have no plans whatsoever to abuse it
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